Ryan Klotz

Ryan Klotz is a visual artist and is a recent graduate with a BFA in painting from Kendall College of Art and Design. His work is best known for the simplicity of his subject, the canvas. Through the blankness of the canvas he is able to explore the tensions between representations and the physical object. These tensions have propelled his work into other materials, such as plaster, in which he recreates the canvas surface through carving large plaster blocks. Ryan has experience in a diverse range of mediums from oil painting to ice carving. He has received awards such as the Excellence Award in painting and sculpture from Grand Rapids Community College as well as the Portfolio Scholarship from Kendall College of Art and Design. Ryan has received commissions for projects spanning from carving a Styrofoam bust for the Grand Rapids Civic Theater to a large-scale public installation at Delta College in Saginaw. Ryan is living and working out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Statement

I have always enjoyed the subtleties of a blank canvas, which in a way is never really blank. Even before it is stretched, it is filled with light, color, and texture. Painting the canvas onto itself creates a tension between what it is and what it is becoming. Painting traditionally implies the application of a medium onto a support. However in this case, it is the fabric itself, which has been manipulated prior to its representation in paint; the canvas becomes the primary medium. The painted object exists in the threshold between its two states of existence: the symbolic thought and the material being. Thinking of the work in a constant state of transition, I began to experiment with different mediums. It is this translation process that has fueled the three-dimensional portion of my work, the carved plaster blocks. These investigations in actual space almost certainly stem from my past influence and interest in architecture, dealing with how people inhabit and interact in spaces. The relation that people have to the work is more important than the work itself because the viewer contributes to the infinite number of possible ideas that converse with the material work. My work provides the space for this conversation.